Led by 21 points and 7 assists from Themus Fulks, the UCF Knights (17-4, 6-3 Big 12) led for more than 36 minutes of action en route to an 88-80 Space Game victory over the #11 Texas Tech Red Raiders at Addition Financial Arena on Saturday.
UCF dominated Texas Tech on the boards, 35-23, including a 13-4 offensive rebounding edge that led to 21 second-chance points.
“Finding a Way”
“Every team has to find a way no matter what’s going on, whether you’re making shots or not making shots, no matter how the game is going,
you still have to find a way to compete to give yourself a chance to win, and I think they did that tonight,” head coach Johnny Dawkins said of his team after the game.
“They found a way.”
Knight Bites
UCF Head Coach Johnny Dawkins
UCF C John Bol and F Jordan Burks
Case in point: Starting guard Riley Kugel was a gametime decision for UCF, as he was reportedly fighting off the flu the past couple of days. He managed to start and play 29 minutes, and despite visibly laboring all day and only scoring nine points on 2/9 shooting, he led UCF in +/- at +14 and forced the Red Raiders to respect his scoring ability on the floor.
JT Toppin, Texas Tech’s leading scorer, showed why he’s a Naismith Award watch-lister, with a game-high 27 points on 12/17 shooting, along with ten rebounds.
Four Knights scored in double digits, led by Fulks, who only shot 9/23 but made Texas Tech point guard Christian Anderson work on both ends of the floor. Anderson tallied 17 points and 9 assists while playing all 40 minutes.
Fulks is now second in the Big 12 behind Anderson and fourth in the nation with 7.2 assists per game.
But the offensive story for UCF was their 48 points in the paint, led by Jordan Burks (17 points, 5/7 shooting, 6/6 at the line), John Bol (14 points on 6/8 shooting), and Jamichael Stillwell, who posted 10 points and added four assists.
UCF owned the hustle stats
Stillwell and Bol also both posted 10 rebounds on the day. Bol’s 10 rebounds came despite taking a knee to the thigh that hobbled him in the first half, and Stilwell was a force on the offensive glass, with 4 of his 10 rebounds coming on the offensive end.
UCF has continued to own the rebounding edge over its opponents. Their +12 advantage in rebounding almost doubled their season average, which is 30th in the nation.
But even that was a bit of a surprise to Jordan Burks after the game.
“We won the boards?” he asked John Bol in the postgame press conference after being asked a question about the Knights’ rebounding edge.
“Hell yeah, we did!” Bol replied, to laughs from the assembled media.
“We knew where the game was,” Bol continued. “It was all about physicality. We work on it every day… So I’m not surprised we won the boards.“
In addition, UCF forced 13 turnovers and scored 18 points off of them, while giving up only two points from their six turnovers.
UCF’s defense also stepped up when they needed it. Texas Tech hit 11 threes, in line with their season average of 11.4 (7th in the nation), and shot a consistent 56% for the game from the floor. But the Knights’ rebounding and turnovers kept them in front almost the whole afternoon.
Wild crowd, wilder finish
After Texas Tech pulled within 2 at 81-79 on a basket by Toppin with 1:54 left, UCF again showed the killer instinct that earned them a comeback win over Arizona State last week, finishing on a 7-1 run and holding Texas Tech to 0/4 with a turnover in the final moments. But it was that final point where the madness really started.
After Christian Anderson missed Tech’s final shot from the floor, the buzzer sounded, and UCF’s student section rushed the floor.
However, a foul was called on Chris Johnson on the rebound as the horn sounded. The officials reviewed the play and determined there were still 0.2 seconds remaining on the clock, and Texas Tech still had two free throws to shoot.
Even the postgame handshake line had to be halted. UCF’s event staff helped the fans clear the floor, and after a brief delay, LeJuan Watts made one out of two (the only point UCF gave up in that final 1:54).
With the final, final buzzer, the fans rushed the floor once again.
Despite the pump fake, the 8,511 fans in attendance were unquestionably a key part of UCF’s victory. They came in primed for a loud day, considering UCF held a block party before the game outside the arena, and then of course it was the Space Game, where UCF unveiled their Canaveral Blue alternate SpaceU uniforms. But the fans lived up to the moment as well.
After the game, Dawkins referenced UCF’s home atmosphere to that at his alma mater, Duke. “You have to be kidding me to think that the Cameron Crazies don’t help what happens in that building, and so the same thing applies here. When [the fans] come out and support and do the things that we’ve done in these moments, it gives us a chance.”
“It’s electric,” Dawkins continued. “I’ve been through the Big 12 and its amazing, amazing atmospheres. And I’ll put our atmosphere up with all of them when we come out like we’ve done. It helps us.”
Marching toward March
The victory over Texas Tech puts UCF at 2-2 against ranked teams this season. But more importantly, it’s a key Quad 1 win for the Knights in the NET Rankings, where UCF was 42nd coming into Saturday (Texas Tech was 17th).
Bracket Matrix, which tracks and aggregates all bracketology indices, had the Knights as an 8 seed at the start of the weekend. ESPN’s Joe Lunardi has the Knights as a 9. That will likely change after a key victory over the #11 team in the AP Top 25.
Next up: Houston
The Knights go back on the road for the next two games, starting with the #10 Houston Cougars on Wednesday night at 7 p.m. ET on FS1. The last time UCF beat Houston was the season finale in March of 2019, when Tacko Fall and the Knights upended the then-#8 and 27-1 Cougars 69-64 in a game that effectively sealed the Knights’ last trip to the NCAA Tournament.
A win at #10 Houston on Wednesday will go a long way to helping UCF accomplish the same goal in 2026.
